Students: How They View Learning and Their Schools: Issues About Change, Volume 5, Number 3

What do students think about education and school improvement programs? Surprisingly little literature has explored this question.

Introduce yourself to the student perspective of successful learners and how teachers, classrooms, and schools helped them learn. This concise summary of SEDL case studies of one primary and one secondary school reveals:

• How students define "successful learning"
• How students perceive classroom relationships
• What motivates students to succeed in school
• How students see teachers' actions as helpful to learning
• How students wish their teachers would act

This paper threads together an analysis of students' comments to research on corporate and school cultures—and the importance of affective factors in learning.

This publication is one of a series of briefing papers called Issues About Change.